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NBA final: Heat, Spurs the models for Raptors to follow

Toronto’s GM and coach should look to build team after NBA finalists by focusing on consistency with roster and coach’s message.

Toronto Raptors GM Masai Ujiri, right, signed coach Dwane Casey to a contract extension at the end of the season, building a consistency in coaching and team message. (Richard Lautens / Toronto Star file photo)

SAN ANTONIO—Dwane Casey talks often about the “program” he wants to develop in Toronto and Masai Ujiri drops the need for “culture” into conversations on a regular basis.

There are mountains to climb for the Raptors head coach and general manager and they may never complete the journey, but they would be wise to pay particular attention to the teams competing for the NBA championship this week.

The San Antonio Spurs and Miami Heat are the NBA gold standards for long-term and more recent success and should be the models the Raptors follow, as difficult as that will be.

The recipe, however, is easy to see but hard to follow.

You get great players and keep them together, a consistency in coaching and message is a must, and talent trumps all but the building process is key and what Ujiri and Casey need to try and mimic.

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Tim Duncan, Tony Parker and Manu Ginobili have been together for a decade, Gregg Popovich has been the only coach they’ve known and the front office has filled in the rest of the roster with good people and good players who are able to adapt. The Raptors are nowhere near that right now but fans can see Ujiri’s attempts to build some kind of continuity. He has re-upped Casey for three more years, is developing a core anchored by DeMar DeRozan, Jonas Valanciunas and, they hope, Kyle Lowry and the general manager has shown an ability to put pieces around that fit in both playing style and personality.

“One thing that’s good about this series is you have two organizations that have incredible stability,” said Miami coach Erik Spoelstra. “They’ve been there forever, all their people.”

The key in Toronto could very well be DeRozan, the anchor and face of the franchise. He is not at the skill level yet of the very best in the game but if the team’s best player is among its most unselfish, it helps with the creation of the culture and “program building” good teams want.

It might be Duncan’s greatest attribute and why talented teammates want to stay with the organization for as long as they can.

“He doesn’t really judge people much,” Popovich said of the future Hall of Famer. “He allows them to become successful because he’s always somebody who is going to be supportive rather than critical.

“Now, he’s a fierce competitor, and he wants to have guys around him that are likeminded, but he really gives them room to flourish.”

That is precisely the kind of leader and star the Raptors have never truly had and desperately need if they ever want to approach the success of the Spurs or the Heat. DeRozan has many of those attributes and he’s young enough to grow into that role even if it’s at a lesser-skilled level.

The other plea that Ujiri and Casey make incessantly is for patience — “We are a work in progress” is the coach’s daily mantra — and it’s another reason the Heat and Spurs have been so successful. Miami’s in the NBA final for the fourth straight time — that’s not something likely to ever happen with the Raptors — but they are insistent on making each season about building rather than expecting.

Franchises would be wise to follow that lead, to expect nothing because of past success — or failure. The Raptors know that when the next season starts, the surprising success of last season will mean little, it is about continuing the process.

“If you’re doing the process the right way, eventually the result will hopefully take care of itself but that’s not guaranteed. So the only thing you can focus on is the now,” said Spoelstra.

“You have to go through the process of building habits and then go through the process of competition and figuring it out. Then when it’s all said and done, you know, everybody can look back on it and see what the result was.”

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